“A youth club for all ages”

It’s like a youth club – but for all ages. That was the conclusion we drew at last Friday’s Table Tennis Club at St Mark’s.

Eleven of us met in the back of the church and spent the evening playing table tennis and pool, drinking tea, coffee and squash, eating biscuits and Bakewell tarts and chatting. We ranged in age from 12 to ehemty-ehem, we came from a range of places and backgrounds and we gelled. I certainly came away feeling I had made new friends and that this was the start of something.

We started the Table Tennis Club because we wanted to play table tennis and it seemed like a good idea. Thanks to a grant from the Farnham Institute we were able to buy a table tennis table, bats and balls, plus some comfortable seating. We added a small pool table when someone generously gave one away on Freecycle, a website where people offer all sorts of unwanted and useful items, and then we launched the club.

I don’t think I’d realised how sociable it would be. As there is – currently at least – just one table tennis table and one pool table we had to take turns which meant we talked. “Why don’t we have board games?” asked one person. “And I’d like to play chess.”

Why not indeed? I am going to look out my chess set and we definitely have Yahtzee somewhere. Scrabble and Upwords were also mentioned. Should we look for a Nintendo Wii which would make some sports more accessible? I recently met a woman in a wheelchair who could beat anyone at Wii 10-pin bowling, and I’m told Wii table tennis is fast and furious.

We met on the last Friday of the month as a trial and from now on we are meeting on the first and third Fridays of the month, which means that we will be at St Mark’s between 7pm and 9pm on Fridays, October 5 and 19, then November 2 and 16, and December 7 (no meeting on December 21). To join in you don’t have to be good at table tennis, pool, or even Upwords. Just drop in any time. It’s rather like a youth club but for all ages.

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Brothers, have no fear of men’s sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.